Super Summer Slugfest Slamdown: Movies & More!

Undead Scottsman

Guek wrote: »

My few quibbles about the avengers movie:

Spoiler:

First of all, it's never explained how Banner gains control of the hulk. He goes nutso when he transforms the first time but is suddenly a team player the second go around?
Why did the chitauri suddenly become helpless when the nuke went off? It didn't seem like the soldiers were supposed to be robots or anything. I'd understand if they were wearing power suits or were cyborgs or something, but it's not really made clear.
Hawkeye misses a ton of shots at the beginning of the movie when using a firearm. It just bugged me. Also, he should have realized that Fury would survive a bullet to the chest and would have logically put one in his head instead.
Cap's helmet was lame.
Thor needed more screen time.
The chitauri in general seemed very weak. I guess against any realistic military force, they would have had the upper hand, but as a whole, it looked like taking apart chitauri soldiers was a bit too easy.

Spoiler:

The first time Banner transformed, it was due to being angry at SHIELD for all the bullshit about having a prison made for him, making weapons with the cube and finally the Black Widow lying to try to keep him from transforming. They mention how after he fell, he aimed for an empty building, indicating that the Hulk won't smash things he isn't angry at. The second time he transformed, he was doing so to fight the Chitauri and Loki (though he still punched Thor when he got the chance)
The Chitauri were cyborgs. There was a the short circuiting noises and sparks when Black Widow was cutting apart their necks that was supposed to tip people off to that fact I think.

Arryn

Guek wrote: »

My few quibbles about the avengers movie:

Spoiler:

First of all, it's never explained how Banner gains control of the hulk. He goes nutso when he transforms the first time but is suddenly a team player the second go around?
Why did the chitauri suddenly become helpless when the nuke went off? It didn't seem like the soldiers were supposed to be robots or anything. I'd understand if they were wearing power suits or were cyborgs or something, but it's not really made clear.
Hawkeye misses a ton of shots at the beginning of the movie when using a firearm. It just bugged me. Also, he should have realized that Fury would survive a bullet to the chest and would have logically put one in his head instead.
Cap's helmet was lame.
Thor needed more screen time.
The chitauri in general seemed very weak. I guess against any realistic military force, they would have had the upper hand, but as a whole, it looked like taking apart chitauri soldiers was a bit too easy.

Spoiler:

On the "Banner in control" part - Isn't that pretty much indicated at the end of the Norton Hulk movie? The final scene with Banner in the backwoods cabin seem to suggest he controls it now.

Tomanta

Arryn wrote: »

Guek wrote: »

My few quibbles about the avengers movie:

Spoiler:

First of all, it's never explained how Banner gains control of the hulk. He goes nutso when he transforms the first time but is suddenly a team player the second go around?
Why did the chitauri suddenly become helpless when the nuke went off? It didn't seem like the soldiers were supposed to be robots or anything. I'd understand if they were wearing power suits or were cyborgs or something, but it's not really made clear.
Hawkeye misses a ton of shots at the beginning of the movie when using a firearm. It just bugged me. Also, he should have realized that Fury would survive a bullet to the chest and would have logically put one in his head instead.
Cap's helmet was lame.
Thor needed more screen time.
The chitauri in general seemed very weak. I guess against any realistic military force, they would have had the upper hand, but as a whole, it looked like taking apart chitauri soldiers was a bit too easy.

Spoiler:

On the "Banner in control" part - Isn't that pretty much indicated at the end of the Norton Hulk movie? The final scene with Banner in the backwoods cabin seem to suggest he controls it now.

Spoiler:

I think that's all there is too it. How does he control it? He's "always angry". He's not completely in control, so his mindset when he transforms definitely matter. Hulk is still his own thing.

Thinking on it today, I really appreciate Ruffalo's performance. I didn't care for the always-nervous Banner until that little fact, but if he is walking around angry/worked up all the time he would constantly be nervous that the big guy would break out.

Centipede Damascus

Guek wrote: »

My few quibbles about the avengers movie:

Spoiler:

Hawkeye misses a ton of shots at the beginning of the movie when using a firearm. It just bugged me. Also, he should have realized that Fury would survive a bullet to the chest and would have logically put one in his head instead.

Spoiler:

I'm going to say that Hawkeye missed that shot for the same reason that Selvig was able to build a failsafe into the gateway device. He was able to exert a small amount of control over his brainwashing.

Blankzilla

Also

Spoiler:

shooting Fury in the head 5 minutes into the movie?

Not really a good move, plotwise.

Tomanta

Blankzilla wrote: »

Also

Spoiler:

shooting Fury in the head 5 minutes into the movie?

Not really a good move, plotwise.

Unless

Spoiler:

That Fury was a Life Model Decoy!

But... I think the references to LMD's that were in the movie was plenty, should not introduce more than you have to.

Guek

Undead Scottsman wrote: »

Spoiler:

The first time Banner transformed, it was due to being angry at SHIELD for all the bullshit about having a prison made for him, making weapons with the cube and finally the Black Widow lying to try to keep him from transforming. They mention how after he fell, he aimed for an empty building, indicating that the Hulk won't smash things he isn't angry at. The second time he transformed, he was doing so to fight the Chitauri and Loki (though he still punched Thor when he got the chance)
The Chitauri were cyborgs. There was a the short circuiting noises and sparks when Black Widow was cutting apart their necks that was supposed to tip people off to that fact I think.

Spoiler:

I can accept that. I came to a similar conclusion, the only problem is I had a bunch of my non-enthusiast friends ask me after the movie why Hulk was suddenly in control and I realized that it was indeed a problem with the movie. Your explanation makes sense, but they didn't do a good job laying it out for the audience.

Centipede Damascus wrote: »

Spoiler:

I'm going to say that Hawkeye missed that shot for the same reason that Selvig was able to build a failsafe into the gateway device. He was able to exert a small amount of control over his brainwashing.

Spoiler:

Again, that's the conclusion I came to as well, but it still bothered me a little bit. It was a cool moment though for sure that surprised a lot of people, but still seems a bit far fetched if brainwashed hawkeye knew from the beginning it wouldn't kill him. He misses a bunch of shots too when trading fire with Hill during the escape, and that just felt odd. I suppose they're emphasizing his ability with bows specifically and this isn't a version of hawkeye that can kill you by throwing his fingernails.

AspectVoid

Diablo Fett wrote: »

the only actor or director that Marvel has any real strained relationship with is Terrance Howard, and that's because he got greedy

even Norton said he had been talking to Whedon and the execs and doesn't bear any grudges, it just didn't work out

Favreau was upset that Iron Man 2 didn't turn out how he wanted it, but it didn't destroy his relationship with the company as money people have already pointed out. Branagh left amicably because he told the story he wanted to tell and isn't interested in a sequel, and Johnston is likely in a similar place, though it hasn't actually been confirmed yet that he isn't returning.

if anything, Marvel allowing directors to leave when they want is a good thing

As far as I know, people that Marvel Films has upset:

Terrance Howard -> Marvel didn't want to pay his asking price, and did practically no negotiations with him. They then replaced him with (IMO) a better actor.

Favreau -> Didn't like how much creative control was taken from him during Iron Man 2. He's not so upset that he'll cut all ties (has said publicly that if they want him back as Happy Hogan, he'd be happy to reprise the role) but he probably won't direct again.

Patty Jenkins -> Got upset over creative difference for Thor 2 and quit during pre-production, but word on the street is that if Marvel asked her to direct a non-sequel so she could set the tone, she would seriously consider it.

Natalie Portman -> She's upset over what happened with Patty Jenkins, but is contractually obligated to appear in more films.

Edward Nortan -> Creative differences over Incredible Hulk and unable to resolve issues enough that Marvel chose to not have him reprise the role for Avengers.

Blankzilla

but notice how most of those people are still friendly with the company and willing to continue working with them

so it isn't really a big deal

Guek

I also don't think it's far fetched to think Marvel might have learned from some of their missteps. IM2 wasn't nearly as well received as IM1, and hopefully that's left an impression on them.

cshadow42

I think Joss Whedon had a good influence on Thor and Captain America; I wouldn't mind if they put him in charge of coordinating stories/scripts amongst the Marvel movies. I think after the coup he pulled with Avengers, and with the godly amount of fanboy love, he can set a lot of terms.

Harry Dresden

cshadow42 wrote: »

I think Joss Whedon had a good influence on Thor and Captain America; I wouldn't mind if they put him in charge of coordinating stories/scripts amongst the Marvel movies. I think after the coup he pulled with Avengers, and with the godly amount of fanboy love, he can set a lot of terms.

I'd like to see him direct an Iron Man, SHIELD, Black Widow or Dr. Strange film.

Hensler

A few questions that non-comic fan friends and asked me and I wasn't sure about the answers to regarding The Avengers:

Spoiler:

- The tesseract/cosmic cube: How is it related to the Casket/Frost-Giant-Cube in Thor? It's called "the jewel of Odin's trophy room" and was hidden by some sort of Norse-worshipers until the Red Skull found it, but the timeline doesn't work for it to be the same object. My thinking was that The Casket from Thor is just another magic object that happens to look similar.

- Captain America's shield: Cap is frozen with his shield, so what is the half-finished shield that we see in Iron Man & Iron Man 2?

- The prison cell on the hellicarrier: This is the big thing I wasn't sure about. SHIELD's big plan for stopping the Hulk was... to put him in a plastic bubble and drop him out of an air plane? I didn't really get this at all. Unless the point of it was to just get the Hulk away from the Hellicarrier at the first sign of him Hulking out. I'm going to go see the movie again tomorow - maybe it will be more clear to me then what the point of this was.

Mr Pink

Hensler wrote: »

A few questions that non-comic fan friends and asked me and I wasn't sure about the answers to regarding The Avengers:

Spoiler:

- The tesseract/cosmic cube: How is it related to the Casket/Frost-Giant-Cube in Thor? It's called "the jewel of Odin's trophy room" and was hidden by some sort of Norse-worshipers until the Red Skull found it, but the timeline doesn't work for it to be the same object. My thinking was that The Casket from Thor is just another magic object that happens to look similar.

- Captain America's shield: Cap is frozen with his shield, so what is the half-finished shield that we see in Iron Man & Iron Man 2?

- The prison cell on the hellicarrier: This is the big thing I wasn't sure about. SHIELD's big plan for stopping the Hulk was... to put him in a plastic bubble and drop him out of an air plane? I didn't really get this at all. Unless the point of it was to just get the Hulk away from the Hellicarrier at the first sign of him Hulking out. I'm going to go see the movie again tomorow - maybe it will be more clear to me then what the point of this was.

Spoiler:

I think the point of the Hulk cage was that they could get Banner in there, maybe calm him down, and if not dump him in the ocean or something. Not sure how they would get him in there once he started Hulking out, honestly, but I'm sure they had some sort of tranquilizer gas or sonic trap.

Guek

hmmm...another quick plot point question:

Spoiler:

when and how did loki get his sceptor back?

Hensler

Guek wrote: »

hmmm...another quick plot point question:

Spoiler:

when and how did loki get his sceptor back?

Spoiler:

I THINK there was a quick scene where it just showed him grabbing it off of a table after Hawkeye blew up the Hellicarrier and he was making his escape.

WiseManTobes

Only 2 more hours until I can click on spoiler tags, must resist , must resist!

But I will say , a) you guys rock in your ability to spoiler!, I haven't been at all afraid to read the forum , knowing all the juicy bits would be tagged.

and b) the last couple pages are hilarious without clicking spoiler tags, cause it's basically 2-3 pages of " OMFG AVENGERS WOOOOO" hovering over spoiler tags

Blankzilla

Hensler wrote: »

A few questions that non-comic fan friends and asked me and I wasn't sure about the answers to regarding The Avengers:

Spoiler:

- The tesseract/cosmic cube: How is it related to the Casket/Frost-Giant-Cube in Thor? It's called "the jewel of Odin's trophy room" and was hidden by some sort of Norse-worshipers until the Red Skull found it, but the timeline doesn't work for it to be the same object. My thinking was that The Casket from Thor is just another magic object that happens to look similar.

- Captain America's shield: Cap is frozen with his shield, so what is the half-finished shield that we see in Iron Man & Iron Man 2?

- The prison cell on the hellicarrier: This is the big thing I wasn't sure about. SHIELD's big plan for stopping the Hulk was... to put him in a plastic bubble and drop him out of an air plane? I didn't really get this at all. Unless the point of it was to just get the Hulk away from the Hellicarrier at the first sign of him Hulking out. I'm going to go see the movie again tomorow - maybe it will be more clear to me then what the point of this was.

Spoiler:

They aren't related other than both of them being artifacts Odin had in his trophy room

The shield was just one of those prototypes that Stark showed Cap in The First Avenger, he had a ton of them.

and that prison cell almost killed Thor, so it is a pretty solid bet that it would at least fuck Hulk up, if not actually kill him.

BionicPenguin

Spoiler:

The whole time that cage was falling, I was wondering why Thor didn't just hold it and fly.

Great movie. Pretty much everything with the Hulk was pure gold.

Centipede Damascus

BionicPenguin wrote: »

Spoiler:

The whole time that cage was falling, I was wondering why Thor didn't just hold it and fly.

Spoiler:

Thor actually can't fly on his own. He just throws his hammer and holds onto it.

Arryn

The only question I was left with was

Spoiler:

Where the hell was War Machine? Mostly joking, but you think Tony would have at least rung him up as the world goes to hell.

Linespider5

Throwing in my own stuff here: DO NOT SEE THE 3D VERSION. The way it's done is ultimately just sort of distracting and detracts from all the impressive CGI compositing work that was being done. It's kind of funny in a way, to be figuring out the best way to create photorealistic depictions of top-shelf comic book action, only to cartoonishly pop out sections of the action sequences in the name of making it 3d. It is just not worth it, as it is the 3d effects are easily the biggest flaw to the experience out of anything else.

Secret Ending:

Spoiler:

Really wasn't expecting a Herman Cain smile out of

Spoiler:

Thanos

, but, why not, I say.

Gonmun

Linespider5 wrote: »

Throwing in my own stuff here: DO NOT SEE THE 3D VERSION. The way it's done is ultimately just sort of distracting and detracts from all the impressive CGI compositing work that was being done. It's kind of funny in a way, to be figuring out the best way to create photorealistic depictions of top-shelf comic book action, only to cartoonishly pop out sections of the action sequences in the name of making it 3d. It is just not worth it, as it is the 3d effects are easily the biggest flaw to the experience out of anything else.

Secret Ending:

Spoiler:

Really wasn't expecting a Herman Cain smile out of

Spoiler:

Thanos

, but, why not, I say.

And did it look like

Spoiler:

Thanos looked like Ron Perlman?

Blankzilla

No.

WiseManTobes

Wow, that was nuts in all the best ways! I'll maybe do picking at it in a day or two, but right now just riding the high from it.

Also I need a gif of

Spoiler:

Hulk smashing Loki

asap, just to watch over and over and over til I die.

Hensler

Gonmun wrote: »

Linespider5 wrote: »

Throwing in my own stuff here: DO NOT SEE THE 3D VERSION. The way it's done is ultimately just sort of distracting and detracts from all the impressive CGI compositing work that was being done. It's kind of funny in a way, to be figuring out the best way to create photorealistic depictions of top-shelf comic book action, only to cartoonishly pop out sections of the action sequences in the name of making it 3d. It is just not worth it, as it is the 3d effects are easily the biggest flaw to the experience out of anything else.

Secret Ending:

Spoiler:

Really wasn't expecting a Herman Cain smile out of

Spoiler:

Thanos

, but, why not, I say.

And did it look like

Spoiler:

Thanos looked like Ron Perlman?

Spoiler:

He was played by Damion Poitier for that scene.

BionicPenguin

Centipede Damascus wrote: »

BionicPenguin wrote: »

Spoiler:

The whole time that cage was falling, I was wondering why Thor didn't just hold it and fly.

Spoiler:

Thor actually can't fly on his own. He just throws his hammer and holds onto it.

Spoiler:

What? Really? Even in the comics? I don't know how I've missed that all this time. I always figured the whole throwing the hammer but holding on thing was just for show.

Harry Dresden

BionicPenguin wrote: »

Centipede Damascus wrote: »

BionicPenguin wrote: »

Spoiler:

The whole time that cage was falling, I was wondering why Thor didn't just hold it and fly.

Spoiler:

Thor actually can't fly on his own. He just throws his hammer and holds onto it.

Spoiler:

What? Really? Even in the comics? I don't know how I've missed that all this time. I always figured the whole throwing the hammer but holding on thing was just for show.

Yep, that's how it is in the comics.

noir_blood

Just finished watching the Avengers. This might have been said before, but I think it's the best comic book movie. Not necessarily the best movie, but Whedon and the cast did an incredible job translating everything you expect out of an Avengers comic and bringing it to life. There's just so many great scenes(and yes, a lot of them involve Hulk), and the quips liven things up as well.

And am I the only one that was watching the whole destruction of NYC and just felt weird not to see Spidey swing around saving people? It obviously was never going to happen, but damn did it feel weird.

Tomanta

noir_blood wrote: »

Just finished watching the Avengers. This might have been said before, but I think it's the best comic book movie. Not necessarily the best movie, but Whedon and the cast did an incredible job translating everything you expect out of an Avengers comic and bringing it to life. There's just so many great scenes(and yes, a lot of them involve Hulk), and the quips liven things up as well.

And am I the only one that was watching the whole destruction of NYC and just felt weird not to see Spidey swing around saving people? It obviously was never going to happen, but damn did it feel weird.

Just pretend he was having a fight with Mary Jane while trying to hide his identity from Aunt May and avoid getting fired by JJ. And pretend that the Fantastic Four were in the Negative Zone.

Alternatively for Spidey, pretend that everyone in those scenes already had their one.

Crimsondude

New York's a big city. They could all have been fighting these guys along with the X-Men in Central Park's Great Lawn.

Gaslight

For some dumb reason (I blame the fact it was close to 3am), I thought

Spoiler:

Thanos was a super skrull or something at first.

Embarrassing.

Crimsondude

To be fair

Spoiler:

They both share that giant wrinkly chin, but yeah. Kl'rt's green. But he wears purple. Whereas Thanos is and wears purple like a weirdo.

Then again, who am I to make a call on whether color quality was good enough to distinguish?

Arryn

Gaslight wrote: »

For some dumb reason (I blame the fact it was close to 3am), I thought

Spoiler:

Thanos was a super skrull or something at first.

Embarrassing.

After seeing that, I think

Spoiler:

that's why they went with the Chitauri as the alien race. Thanos looks enough like a skrull that Whedon probably figured the average movie-goer (as in non-comics fans) would assume he was yet another skrull, just purple.

Undead Scottsman

Arryn wrote: »

Gaslight wrote: »

For some dumb reason (I blame the fact it was close to 3am), I thought

Spoiler:

Thanos was a super skrull or something at first.

Embarrassing.

After seeing that, I think

Spoiler:

that's why they went with the Chitauri as the alien race. Thanos looks enough like a skrull that Whedon probably figured the average movie-goer (as in non-comics fans) would assume he was yet another skrull, just purple.

Spoiler:

Also because they didn't want to bog the plot down with worrying about shapechangers.

Tomanta

They may not even be able to use

Spoiler:

Skrulls. They may be tied up with the Fantastic Four license.

Linespider5

Thinking more on it now, wasn't just about the entire movie one, long, rising action?

I'm only bringing this up because most of the time I'm used to movies really having this rest stops in the story or something rather unimportant that WILL NOT GO AWAY and therefore must be dealt with for five minutes before the plot can move on.

Not saying the Avengers needed these moments, but it was like being on a ride at an amusement park where you've got all this muscle memory from other rides telling you there will be these breaks for some damn reason and this one did not do that.

initiatefailure

Ok seeing that in IMAX made me so happy to wait a few extra days. IMAX sidestepped a lot of the problems with the normal 3d. nothing felt cut out and slapped on top and there where no cheesey shots filmed specifically for 3-d (i call them throw shit at the camera scenes). My only problem was a few times where i noticed it feeling too dark or being confused for a second by one scene cutting to another. Not sure if that's a product of the movie, the 3d conversion or just the giant screen and how I was focused on one part of it when the change happened. Our theatre was filled 30 minutes before the movie even started which I wasn't expecting but I guess when you only have 4 showings a day in imax then it's gonna be packed on opening weekend no matter what time you see it.

Overall it was a fantastic experience. the entire theatre started applauding at the end. I gave a quick explanation to some people around us about the first after credit scene and thought the second one was pitch perfect to end on. I'm still smiling about that.

I'm trying to wait a few days to start talking about the actual movie though. I don't want to ruin anyone's time.

noir_blood

Oh, something else that momentarily took me out of the movie was Thor's presence

Spoiler:

The rainbow bridge is destroyed at the end of his own movie right? I don't think they explain how he's back on Earth. I guess they'll do that in his own movie, but then that means it'll take place before Avengers?

Tomanta

noir_blood wrote: »

Oh, something else that momentarily took me out of the movie was Thor's presence

Spoiler:

The rainbow bridge is destroyed at the end of his own movie right? I don't think they explain how he's back on Earth. I guess they'll do that in his own movie, but then that means it'll take place before Avengers?

They explain it.

Spoiler:

Loki comments that Odin must have expended a lot of energy to send Thor to Earth, or something like that. At another point they specifically mention that the bridge is still destroyed.